If the comment surprises Dr. Ravi, he doesn’t show it. “No. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t poor.”
“You managed to pay for Oxford.”
“Cambridge,” he says, biting the syllables. “I was on a partial scholarship.”
They are cresting the hill that blocks the view of the garden. “You don’t like street kids.”
Dr. Ravi’s shoulders rise and fall. “I don’t mind them in the street. In the house is a different matter.”
“Is that a sentiment your employer shares?”
“I have no idea. He was more like them when he was young than I was.”
“People change,” Rafferty says as the apple tree gleams its way into sight.
A diplomatic head waggle of disagreement. “In some ways. At the core, though, I think they stay the same.”
“Really? You don’t think power corrupts?”
Dr. Ravi makes a tiny adjustment to the steering column with no discernible effect. “It corrupts the corruptible.”
“Ah.” Rafferty sits back and watches the garden slide past. “You knew what Snakeskin meant.”
“Of course. The first thing I did when I came to work here was to go through the documents that spell out Khun Pan’s past.”
“Why would you do that?”
Dr. Ravi turns to face him for a moment, a glance that’s meant to put Rafferty in his place, and then looks back at the road. “I’m his media adviser, remember? I need to know what’s back there, what’s on record, in case something gets dredged up. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that there are people in the media who don’t like him.”
“So you’re an expert on his past.”
Dr. Ravi worries the idea for a few seconds and says, “To some extent.”
“Then how’d he get burned?”
They glide past the empty little village, as deserted now as Da’s is. The pigs watch them go with lazy attention, as though wondering whether the swan is edible. “That”-Dr. Ravi accelerates slightly, as though the talk has gone on too long-“you’ll have to ask
THE FIRST THING he hears when he opens the front door is laughter, coming from the back of the house, the direction of Pan’s office. Then he hears voices, Pan’s surprisingly wispy one and Da’s. Whatever Pan says, Da starts laughing again.
She turns to smile a greeting at Rafferty as he pushes the door open. Pan is standing in the middle of the room with Peep in his arms. The baby’s dirty blue blanket looks incongruous against the yellow silk covering Pan’s chest, beneath the unsettling pink of his mouth. Boo lounges behind Pan’s desk with his hands folded over his nonexistent belly, apparently completely at ease, and Da occupies the chair Rafferty had claimed four days earlier, the afternoon before the gala fund-raiser.
“What a treat,” Pan says to Rafferty, although his smile is measured. “You have very interesting friends.”
“She’s from Isaan,” Rafferty says.
“Yes,” Pan says, “we’ve had a few minutes to get that on the table. And he’s a flower of the pavement, isn’t he?”
“Or a weed,” Boo says. He grins, but his eyes are watchful.
“Have they told you why I brought them here?”
“We just got here,” Da says. “And we don’t really know.”
“Well, it’s probably rude to bring up business so quickly, but Dr. Ravi says you’re pressed for time.”
Pan gives Peep a little bounce. “Dr. Ravi is an old woman. When you’re as rich as I am, time is elastic.”
“It’s elastic when you’re poor, too,” Boo says.
“That’s true, isn’t it?” Pan says. “I hadn’t thought of it, although I should have. I was poor long enough. But for everybody else, everybody who has something but not enough, time is rigid. It’s a floor plan for the day, isn’t it? You can only stay in each room so long.”
“So,” Rafferty says, “are we going to sit around and philosophize, or should we get down to it?”
Pan’s smile dims a notch. “You seem to be in more of a hurry than I am.”
“Cute baby, isn’t it?” Rafferty says.
“Adorable.” Pan raises Peep and makes a little kiss noise. Peep screws up his face, waves a fist, and starts to cry. Da rises and goes to take him, then carries him back to her chair.
“Did Da tell you where she got him?”
“Where she
“He was handed to her,” Rafferty says. “Five days ago. By an old acquaintance of yours.”
Boo sits straighter behind the desk.
Still watching Peep, Pan says, “You think I know someone who gives away babies?”
“Well, you used to know him. His name is Wichat.”
Pan turns his head a few inches to the left and regards Rafferty as though he’s favoring his dominant eye. “You’ve been busy.” He leans back, resting part of his broad bottom on the edge of the desk. “If you wanted to know about all that, you could have talked to me.”
“You
